Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said on Wednesday that China and the United States should positively carry out a large-scale economic and trade cooperation.

When meeting celebrities from the U.S. economic and financial community, Wen said political and strategic mutual trust should be the precondition of such cooperation.

Since the establishment of diplomatic ties 31 years ago, China and the United States have developed a lot more common interests than differences. The two countries have strengthened strategic mutual trust, widened the basis for cooperation and deepened interdependence, Wen said.

He said a sound and stable Sino-U.S. economic and trade relationship is in line with the fundamental interests of both countries.

The total trade volume was 2.5 billion U.S. dollars when diplomatic ties were forged in 1979, while the figure has surged to over 350 billion dollars at present, Wen said, adding that it signified the bilateral economic and trade relationship has kept a sound momentum.

China became the third biggest market for U.S. exports in 2009. Over the past three decades, the U.S. enterprises have altogether invested over 62.2 billion dollars in 58,000 projects in China, and in 2008 alone, their profits amounted to approximately 8 billion dollars, according to the official data provided by the Chinese government.